Flames
by saffroncremebrulee
Summary: He drinks to forget. Pity fate had other plans. Bonus fic, Mirrors-verse. Rated M for mature audiences.
**Flames**

 **Disclaimer** : I do now own YGO. This is a work of fanfiction. Companion piece to _Timber,_ though this one is rated M.

 **Inspiration** : Poivre Samarcande by Hermes, Hotel California by The Eagles, and photos of windy desert landscapes.

 _For Elficiel, who requested "drunk!Revolutionshipping goodness," which my muse interpreted as a boatload of angst._

 **Warning: Contains descriptions of alcohol/drinking, self-destructive behavior, and survivor's guilt. This one is for mature audiences only.**

...

He takes bourbon neat. None of that fuss with ice or garnishes or bitters. Just the liquor, no extras. Per usual, it's dry and astringent, with a faint herbaceous undercurrent that barely puts a dent into the grief. Yami guzzles the entire helping in a mockery of (or was it a tribute to?) salvation. Overhead, the moon hung over limp red and black spikes before slipping to the now-empty bottle, scattering light like knives at a disco. Yami throws it haphazardly when the alcohol is gone. North. South. Any direction would do, really, as long as it was out of sight like his grief or his guilt or his conscience or his pretty much _anything_ at this point.

 _Clunk_.

The container hits a rock or a cactus or the ghost of a memory- Yami isn't sure what it is right now. _Whatever_. The glass shatters, pieces scattering like a limp confetti cannon. Stumbling only a little, he sinks, wilted, into the sand. The bourbon sinks, too, sharp and peppery down his esophagus, burning a path through his core and his eyes. After a while Yami ceases to _feel_ , to _exist_ , even, trading torrents of emotion for a fragile armor of silence and numbness. In a few hours it would wear off and emptiness would disappear and the pain would come roaring back, but for now it was dull, blunted by a haze of desolation and regret.

Time drags on and Yami keeps drinking.

 _Stupid._ He berates himself.

 _Stupid,_ _ **stupid**_ _fool._

There were no illusions left, not after yesterday. _He_ was supposed to be the strong one, the one that was supposed to guide protect _aibou_. If the duel against Rafael was any indication, though, he wasn't fit to brush the lint off _aibou's_ jacket, let alone do any sort of guiding or teaching. He quite literally wasn't even fit to be in the same plane as _aibou_. With that, Yami pours another shot, rimming the nuzzle with tears and regret before dumping it down his throat.

 _Corrupt._

 _Arrogant._

 _Selfish._

Insults spiral on and Yami keeps drinking.

Easy enough to squirrel away a few sips once everyone collapsed (Rebecca openly sobbing herself to sleep- not that they didn't all want to do the same). Somehow, a few sips turned into a glass, then two, and pretty soon the thin sickle of moonlight in the distance grew fatter and rounder until its edges blended into the desert below. Now and then the breeze cackled and creaked while bits of rock slithered across the flat expanse of land. He thought perhaps- miracle of miracles- _aibou_ had returned but, no, it was just the wind howling against the wound of the open land. When the bourbon was gone, there was the tequila, then the vodka, the brandy, and then the scotch, which must have been a bad batch because it tasted like dry ashes scraped from the side of a furnace. The moonlight lingers, and, vaguely, Yami wonders if he could ever be redeemed.

 _Crunch._

Someone was coming his way, dancing carefully around the mosaic of broken glass pieces littered across the canyon floor. Yami didn't even bother to raise his head, just the bottle, a little bit wobbly and unsteady. Liquid sloshes and dribbles, drowned by the ground below almost as quickly as his stomach. Yami wonders who it is. The likely candidates were a toss-up between Joey, Tristan, or Duke, who wavered visibly between wanting to punch him for losing Yugi or bro hugging him for losing Yugi. The compassion hurt more than Rebecca's full-armed slap because Rebecca seemed to be the only one who didn't mince words about squaring the blame where it belonged- with _Yami_ , and only Yami. Yet these steps were soft, rhythmic, gentle beats of bass echoing in the landscape. (Not any of the guys. Maybe Rebecca, then?) Yami braced himself for another one-sided diatribe. Best to accept what everyone was thinking. It wasn't as if he had actually expected anyone to forgive him when he couldn't even forgive himself.

But it wasn't Rebecca who folded herself neatly into the hollow space between his arms. It was Anzu, who looked a little puffy and a lot scared, who had to physically maneuver his limp arms around her shivering torso and adjust his hands so they didn't accidentally crush her collarbone. Yami didn't move except to try to focus on a pair of glassy blue eyes in the face that Yugi had been holding onto for as long as sand blanketed Egypt, maybe even longer.

At that, the shriek that had been building inside Yami's head escaped in anguished crescendo. This wasn't _right_. None of it was right. None of this was _supposed_ to happen, either. His soul wasn't supposed to survive. Yugi's soul was supposed to survive, to be here, to comfort Anzu and to share in all that was good and pure about being young and in love and thinking the world was a wonderfully open place. _Yugi_ , who genuinely thought the best of everyone and was sincere about everything he did. _Yugi_ , who was physically incapable of turning away a friend, even when it meant losing this soul. _That_ boy- no, _man_ \- _deserved_ to survive.

Yami didn't.

 _Soulless_ hadn't been one of the insults Rafael slung- each deeper than a knife. Surely Yami never had a soul to lose, or deserved to have one anymore. Words must have tumbled through his drunkenness because Anzu wrapped herself tighter around his torso. She didn't say anything, but he yelled all of the words that she must have been thinking out loud. Angry, caustic remarks about pride. Scathing reviews of his dueling abilities. Brutal assessments of character. When it was all over, he cried hot, scalding tears that burned through the numbness. Gently, she brushed the tangles out of his hair and, for a moment, the world didn't feel as if it was careening out of its axis, just a little wobbly- or was that his balance?

Anzu murmured something, then took the bottle of _something_ (maybe it was the gin now? All of the labels were oddly blurry at this point) from his hands and chucked it with a surprising amount of force. The glass shattered against a cactus or perhaps a ghost and sank into the ground, where Anzu slowly slid, too, tears cascading. Yami had been sure she had focused all of her tears for Yugi; yet, gazing at those red-rimmed eyes, she had been crying for him, too. The sorrowful glint her eyes vanished as she put her head against his shoulder.

Yami still feels numb, but it's a different kind of numbness now.

They had done this once before, in Battle City, her feeding him cola shots from behind a long marble bar and him pretending not to know the difference. They hadn't talked then. This wasn't a proper kind of grief, either, and he had been sure she was actually consuming something behind the counter as she tried very hard not to cry, too. He had thought all of the tears were for Yugi but, of course, fool of _fools_ some of them were for him, too.

Slowly, feeling seeps back into Yami's arms and he holds Anzu, as tightly as he could without turning her blue and she sinks against him, into the cracks that were beginning to develop. He was responsible for the rage and the despair and the self-loathing, but, the grief, at least, was something that he didn't have to carry alone anymore.

...

Please review? This is the last of the angsty/sad _Mirrors_ fics. The next one will be happy, I promise.


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